Who was in ousted Syrian President Assad’s inner circle and where are they now?

Bashar Assad, right, and his brother Maher Assad, center, stand during the funeral of their father, former President Hafez Assad, in Damascus, Syria, June 13, 2000. (AP)
Bashar Assad, right, and his brother Maher Assad, center, stand during the funeral of their father, former President Hafez Assad, in Damascus, Syria, June 13, 2000. (AP)
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Updated 14 December 2024
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Who was in ousted Syrian President Assad’s inner circle and where are they now?

Who was in ousted Syrian President Assad’s inner circle and where are they now?
  • Some 8,000 Syrian citizens have entered Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing in recent days, according to two Lebanese security officials & a judicial official, and about 5,000 have left the neighboring country through Beirut’s international airport

BEIRUT: After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officials and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away. Activists say some of them have managed to flee the country while others went to hide in their hometowns.
For more than five decades, the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron grip, locking up those who dared question their power in the country’s notorious prisons, where rights groups say inmates were regularly tortured or killed.
The leader of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham insurgent group — which led anti-government fighters who forced Assad from power — has vowed to bring those who carried out such abuses to justice.
“We will go after them in our country,” said HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who was previously known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani. He added that the group will also ask foreign countries to hand over any suspects.
But finding those responsible for abuses could prove difficult.
Some 8,000 Syrian citizens have entered Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing in recent days, according to two Lebanese security officials and a judicial official, and about 5,000 have left the neighboring country through Beirut’s international airport. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Most of those are presumed to be regular people, and Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said earlier this week that no Syrian official entered Lebanon through a legal border crossing.
In an apparent effort to prevent members of Assad’s government from escaping, the security officials said a Lebanese officer who was in charge of Masnaa was ordered to go on vacation because of his links to Assad’s brother.
But Rami Abdurrhaman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says several senior officers have nonetheless made it to neighboring Lebanon using travel documents with fake names.
Here’s a look at Assad and some of the officials in his inner circle.
Bashar Assad
The Western-educated ophthalmologist initially raised hopes that he would be unlike his strongman father, Hafez, when he took power in 2000, including freeing political prisoners and allowing for a more open discourse.
But when protests of his rule erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to brutal tactics to crush dissent. As the uprising became an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.
He has fled to Moscow, according to Russian state media.
Maher Assad
The younger brother of the ousted president was the commander of the 4th Armored Division, which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers. He is under US and European sanctions. He disappeared over the weekend, and Abdurrhaman said he made it to Russia.
Last year, French authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Maher Assad, along with his brother and two army generals, for alleged complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including in a 2013 chemical attack on rebel-held Damascus suburbs.
Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk
Mamlouk was a security adviser to Assad and former head of the intelligence services. He is wanted in Lebanon for two explosions in the northern city of Tripoli in 2012 that killed and wounded dozens.
Mamlouk is also wanted in France after a court convicted him and others in absentia of complicity in war crimes and sentenced them to life in prison. The trial focused on the officials’ role in the 2013 arrest in Damascus of a Franco-Syrian man and his son and their subsequent torture and killing.
Abdurrahman said Mamlouk fled to Lebanon, and it is not clear if he is still in the country under the protection of Hezbollah.
Brig. Gen. Suheil Al-Hassan
Al-Hassan was the commander of the 25th Special Missions Forces Division and later became the head of the Syrian Special Forces, which were key to many of the government’s battlefield victories in the long-running civil war, including in Aleppo and the eastern suburbs of Damascus that long held off Assad’s troops.
Al-Hassan is known to have close ties to Russia and was praised by Russian President Vladimir Putin during one of his visits to Syria. Al-Hassan’s whereabouts are not known.
Maj. Gen. Hussam Luka
Luka, head of the General Security Directorate intelligence service, is not well known among the wider public but has played a major role in the crackdown against the opposition, mainly in the central city of Homs that was dubbed the “capital of the Syrian revolt.”
Luka has been sanctioned by the US and Britain for his role in the crackdown. It’s not clear where he is.
Maj. Gen. Qahtan Khalil
Khalil, whose whereabouts are also unknown, was head of the Air Force Intelligence service and is widely known as the “Butcher of Daraya” for allegedly leading a 2012 attack on a Damascus suburb of the same name that killed hundreds of people.
Other officials
— Retired Maj. Gen. Jamil Hassan, former head of the Air Force Intelligence service, is also suspected of bearing responsibility for the attack in Daraya. Hassan was among those convicted in France this year along with Mamlouk.
— Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Abbas and Maj. Gen. Bassam Merhej Al-Hassan, head of Bashar Assad’s office and the man in charge of his security, are accused of human rights violations.

 


Biden spoke with Netanyahu, source says; Sullivan says hostage deal very close

Smoke rises from a building destroyed in Israeli airstrike at the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip
Smoke rises from a building destroyed in Israeli airstrike at the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip
Updated 48 min 2 sec ago
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Biden spoke with Netanyahu, source says; Sullivan says hostage deal very close

Smoke rises from a building destroyed in Israeli airstrike at the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip
  • Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program earlier on Sunday that the parties were “very, very close” to reaching a deal

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a source familiar with the matter said, as US officials race to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Biden and Netanyahu discussed efforts under way to reach a deal to halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and free the remaining 98 hostages held there, the source said.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program earlier on Sunday that the parties were “very, very close” to reaching a deal, but still had to get it across the finish line.
He said Biden was getting daily updates on the talks in Doha, where Israeli and Palestinian officials have said since Thursday that some progress has been made in the indirect talks between Israel and militant group Hamas.
“We are still determined to use every day we have in office to get this done,” Sullivan said, “and we are not, by any stretch of imagination, setting this aside.”
He said there was still a chance to reach an agreement before Biden leaves office, but that it was also possible “Hamas, in particular, remains intransigent.”
Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed across its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and gripped by a humanitarian crisis, and most of its population displaced.
Vice President-elect JD Vance told the “Fox News Sunday” program in an interview taped on Saturday that he expects a deal for the release of US hostages in the Middle East to be announced in the final days of the Biden administration, maybe in the last day or two.
President-elect Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has strongly backed Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas. He has promised to bring peace to the Middle East, but has not said how he would accomplish that.


Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company

Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company
Updated 12 January 2025
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Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company

Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company
  • Israel withheld Palestinian Authority's sums earmarked for administration expenses in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023

JERUSALEM: Israel plans to use tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to pay the PA’s nearly 2 billion shekel ($544 million) debt to state-run Israel Electric Co. (IEC), the far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday.
Israel collects tax on goods that pass through Israel into the occupied West Bank on behalf of the PA and transfers the revenue to Ramallah under a longstanding arrangement between the two sides.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Smotrich has withheld sums earmarked for administration expenses in the Gaza Strip.
Those frozen funds are held in Norway and, he said at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, would instead be used to pay debt owed to the IEC of 1.9 billion shekels.
“The procedure was implemented after several anti-Israeli actions and included Norway’s unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich told cabinet ministers.
“The PA’s debt to IEC resulted in high loans and interest rates, as well as damage to IEC’s credit, which were ultimately rolled over to the citizens of Israel.”
The ultranationalist Smotrich has been opposed to sending funds to the PA, which uses the money to pay public sector wages.
Israel also deducts funds equal to the total amount of so-called martyr payments, which the PA pays to families of militants and civilians killed or imprisoned by Israeli authorities.


UAE ship delivers 3,000 tonnes of relief supplies to Lebanon

UAE ship delivers 3,000 tonnes of relief supplies to Lebanon
Updated 12 January 2025
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UAE ship delivers 3,000 tonnes of relief supplies to Lebanon

UAE ship delivers 3,000 tonnes of relief supplies to Lebanon
  • Items include food, essentials for women and children, winter necessities

LONDON: The second aid ship from the UAE arrived at Beirut port on Sunday, carrying 3,000 tonnes of relief supplies as part of the UAE Stands with Lebanon campaign.

The UAE launched its campaign to support Lebanon last October as Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah escalated in the south of the country.

Nasser Yassin, Lebanon’s environment minister and head of the government’s emergency committee, and Brig. Gen. Bassem Nabulsi, the chairman of the Supreme Relief Authority, received the ship at Beirut port.

Supplies included food, essentials for women and children, winter necessities, and shelter equipment, the Emirates News Agency reported.

Sultan Mohammed Al-Shamsi, the vice chairman of the UAE Aid Agency, said that the UAE’s moral obligation to support the Lebanese people “stems from the humanitarian legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, who dedicated himself to helping nations in need.”

The UAE announced its plan to reopen the embassy in Beirut following a phone call between the newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and the UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, on Saturday.

The leadership in Saudi Arabia welcomed the election of Aoun after a two-year political void in Lebanon. Riyadh has dedicated efforts to help the Lebanese people cope with the devastation caused by the Israeli war and has dispatched several aid planes since 2024.


King of Jordan meets Vatican secretary of state in Amman

King of Jordan meets Vatican secretary of state in Amman
Updated 12 January 2025
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King of Jordan meets Vatican secretary of state in Amman

King of Jordan meets Vatican secretary of state in Amman
  • Cardinal Pietro Parolin was in Jordan for the inauguration of the Church of John the Baptist
  • King Abdullah praises Pope Francis’s support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip

LONDON: King Abdullah of Jordan welcomed Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, at Al-Husseiniya Palace in Amman on Sunday.

King Abdullah sent his greetings to Pope Francis during a meeting attended by several senior royal advisers and aides. Cardinal Parolin thanked King Abdullah for his support and patronage of the Christian communities in Jordan.

The Jordanian king praised the pope’s support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who since late 2023 have suffered the effects of an Israeli military campaign.

They agreed on the need to stop Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, and increase the flow of humanitarian aid. They also warned of aggressive Israeli policies in occupied East Jerusalem and its effect on the Islamic and Christian holy sites, the Petra news agency reported.

Parolin on Friday attended the inauguration of the Church of John the Baptist on the east bank of the Jordan River.


15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen

An explosion at a gas station triggered a massive fire in central Yemen, killing at least 15 people, officials said Sunday.
An explosion at a gas station triggered a massive fire in central Yemen, killing at least 15 people, officials said Sunday.
Updated 12 January 2025
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15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen

An explosion at a gas station triggered a massive fire in central Yemen, killing at least 15 people, officials said Sunday.
  • At least 67 others were injured, including 40 in critical condition
  • Footage circulated online showing a massive fire that sent columns of smoke into the sky and left vehicles charred and burning

CAIRO: An explosion at a gas station triggered a massive fire in central Yemen, killing at least 15 people, health officials said Sunday.
The explosion occurred Saturday at the Zaher district in the province of Bayda, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said in a statement. At least 67 others were injured, including 40 in critical condition.
The ministry said rescue teams were searching for those reported missing. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the explosion.
Footage circulated online showing a massive fire that sent columns of smoke into the sky and left vehicles charred and burning.
Bayda is controlled by the Houthis, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade.
Elsewhere in Bayda, the Houthis attacked and looted Hanaka Al-Masoud village in the Al-Qurayshiya district last week, according to the internationally recognized government. It said there were fatalities but gave no figures.
Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani said the attack came after a weeklong siege of the village.
“This horrific attack targeted citizens’ homes and mosques, and resulted in many casualties, including women and children, and the destruction of property,” he said.
Rights activist Riyadh Al-Dubai said the Houthis detained dozens of men and looted homes, seizing valuables such as gold, money, daggers and other possessions. He said shelling by the Houthis had continued relentlessly day and night for more than five days.
The US Embassy in Yemen condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the “deaths, injuries, and wrongful detentions of innocent Yemenis perpetrated by Houthi terrorists are depriving the Yemeni people of peace and a brighter future.”
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when the Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia. 
The war has killed more than 150,000 people including civilians and combatants, and in recent years deteriorated largely into a stalemate and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.